... the misguided German/Prussian general staff would have put the Kaiser under house arrest, and succeeded in killing Hitler, Goebels, Himmler et al.

Instead, Germany was ruined in the 'great' war, and suffered destruction of a biblical/Roman quality (and unprecedented quantity) in the 'good' war. Field Marshal Paulus finally got it, enlisting with the Russians after his Fu**er needlessly sacrificed a whole army, 700,000+ casualties. Paulus' cohort had misunderstood the kind of war he had been fighting, violating St. Carl's rule 1. 'Hustling Heinz' Guderian never did get it; a model of energetic inefficiency, digging the hole deeper until both E. Prussia and Konigsberg ceased to exist as German speaking states, and then focussing on temporary tactical successes in his memoir.

Just sayin... the 'military efficiency' that anointed our General Groves a nuclear czar, leaving the new President Truman treading unplumbed intellectual and strategic water in the dark, in the critical endgame of a world war? That's not something for today's uniformed defenders of our Constitution to aspire to.

And yet, the 1949 national security state model stands and expands today. War memoirs celebrate the efficiency of our march to Baghdad, our think tank wonks smile at NATO's good fortune in Libya, and our forward leaning war party debates attacking Iran in Syria, or on their home shores.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. The Germans system may have had problems but it was far superior to ours at the time for producing good NCOs and Officers. While our system is set up so that the Civilians have final call if we go to war they should not be getting involved in the calls on the ground to either shoot or don't shoot, how the tactics are used or what tactics are used. They should have the vision for the overall long term strategy and that is it. Jimmy Carters was in direct comms operators with Operation Sundown, they attempted to institute ROEs on that same mission that would have doomed it from the start and political interference caused numerable problems and even delayed the capture or killing of UBL earlier on in the Afghan War. This has nothing to do with the limited wars we fight, most of it is due to the increased political mentality of the senior generals, the micromanagement of the military by the civilians and the micromanagement of the subordinates in the military by the senior leaders, it is cultural now. When combined with huge advances in technology the things that are supposed to increase effectiveness actually hinder us (the video I sent you guys with the subtitles about AOB's and VSOs is so accurate it is scary).

This is something we need to discourage not encourage in both our higher ups and in our civilian leadership as well. "Commanders Intent" is not just something that should flow from our Generals (it rarely does in reality), it is something that should flow from our civilians leaders as well. I will still lay the large part of the blame for this mentality at our senior leaders in the military, some are getting better about it but we will slide back again I am sure unless someone actually pushes for radical changes in the military culture of our GO's, something I don't see happening with the wonders I see such as the excitement over the "Diversity Report", "Uniform and Haircuts", a new PRT for the Army and Navy that has no upper body requirement, concentration on big ticket items over basic training for the troops, regulations that do nothing to increase effectiveness but do increase "safety", etc...etc... or as another example of micro-management to the extreme-the upcoming alcohol testing that will come in the mornings as we stroll in to work to ensure that we are somehow sober enough to actually work. These actions all combine to infantilize the troops and micromanage them to the point that they are automatons with little initiative or outside the box thinking. In short, I have said it once and I will say it again, we are an military of "Lions lead by Deer".

I really cannot recommend enough for some of the folks on here to read about why de-centralized command and the power of TRUE commanders intent is so important.
"The Enlightened Soldier", "Stormtroop Tactics", "Command or Control", "Maneuver Warfare (Lind), Fourth Generation Warfare series by Lind and "Frontsoldaten". I know they are German heavy but they trained their people from the bottom up, encouraged initiative to the extreme and trained their leaders properly all the way through the end of the war. As evil of a regime as they were they did a lot of things right in a few areas, we should take those as lessons learned no matter how foul of a source it came from.

KUNINO, I think you make a good point about Capt. Mariner’s remark about Pershing efforts to prevent the American forces being used as replacement ‘cannon fodder’. In fact, as a result of the German 1918 offensives he did allow American divisions and specialist medical and engineering troops to be assigned to both British and French commands to help stabilize the front.

This was done partly to give the very green American troops a blooding and also to demonstrate cooperation with the coalition when it was n a tight spot. He then would be in a stronger position to construct an all American army of maneuver on its own part of the front.

However, one thing I would take exception with was your comment that Pershing's army efficiently did its assigned tasks. In fact, the American experience on the western front in WW1 was extremely inefficient largely as a result of untrained staffs and a desperate shortage of support troops in favor of shipping combat troops to France. American officers took note and corrected this in the next go-around in 1942.

When meeting Pershing, Clemenceau reminded him that he had entered Richmond one week before Grant and the Union Army. If the French did not teach the Americans how to fight, the Germans most assuredly would. The only American weapon used in that war was the Springfield copied from the British Enfield. To state we were unprepared is an understatement. From something I wrote:

When speaking to an audience celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Armistice of World War I in 1938, George Marshall gave the listeners the caveat that he was presenting the problem of going to war from the aspect of the professional soldier. The General told the knowing audience of the American problem of unpreparedness. General Marshall mentioned the part the United States did play in the war was well known, but many blundering steps by America were not known to the general public. Painfully remembered by Marshall was sailing to Europe with the First Division in June, 1917 in the first convoy shortly after America declared war. Some 80 percent of the men in the ranks were recruits who got their rifles on the train between the Mexican border and Hoboken. Marshall admitted all the men were good Americans, but they were not soldiers.

The listeners were reminded from the day his ship landed in France on June 26, 1917 to September 12, 1918 when the American Army deployed in battle in divisional size, the Allies protected the American Army in the rear. American units did engage in some combat duty, but not in divisional size. American forces were protected on the field for a over a year while the vaunted American Army got ready. George Marshall thought Americans who were quick to remember Valley Forge and the American Revolution did not realize that in France of 1917 the American Army was in a similar situation. Marshall saw troops of the First Division without shoes and with feet wrapped in gunnysacks march 10 or 15 kilometers through ice or snow. The strength and sacrifice of the Allies held the enemy at bay for a year. This great effort enabled the fighting of battles which ended the war. David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister at war's end, in his memoirs remembered with deserving petulance the concession to General Pershing on maintaining American divisional formations and Pershing's refusal to merge American infantry with British force. Pershing relinquished American command temporarily only for training. Could Pershing have imagined the reaction of the British and French to having untried American formations fighting adjacent to their men while facing a formidable enemy like the Germans? Did he have much concern for the risk he was placing Allied troops under?

Lloyd George swore American troops in battalion strength had expressed satisfaction at suggestions of being incorporated into British formations. Moreover, he quoted Pershing writing at the end of February, 1918 of Pershing's disappointment at American progress and the possibility of having to stand by almost helplessly while the Allies were assaulted by the Germans and were suffering losses in the hundreds of thousands while struggling against defeat. Lloyd George noted a high proportion of American troops as of February 28, 1918 were non-combatants and the rest were poorly trained.

The acerbic Thorsten Veblen attributed any utterances by the patriotic types as to how America won the war in Europe as "stage bravery". Professor Veblen attributed the puerile blood lust of Americans to dementia praecox, an affliction of distemper of early manhood. Prince Max, cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm, observed the American war machine started with much publicity, but very slowly for Americans with their false pretense felt the only way they could learn was not by the mistakes of their Allies, but only by bitter experiences of their own. The cold fact was that America did not get an army into the field until 17 months after declaring war, and the American army only fought as an integral unit for all of two months. During the Second World War Churchill's scientific advisor Professor F.A. Lindemann reminded George Marshall that America had to fight knowing that British losses during World War I had severely affected their ability to fight.

You make many good points in your comment that the American public were really not interested in hearing. Fortunately, good officers like Marshall were realists and between the wars with scarce resources attempted to correct many of the problems experienced in doctrine, training and organization if only on paper. They were largely successful in implementing those ideas twenty years later.

The Enfield M1917 not the Springfield was copied from the British Pattern 1913 Enfield and proved to be considerably more durable and as accurate as the Springfield M1903. Since the rifle was already in production at Winchester and Remington for British contract it made sense to convert it to the U.S. .30 Govt. and mass-produce it for U. S. troops. The mistake at the end of the war was to retain the Springfield as standard issue only because it was an American design and made at U. S. arsenals.

During the war the British FM Alanbrook often said that the tremendous casualties of British officers in the First World War damaged the pool of officer talent for the Second. No doubt the casualties were in fact massive but no worse as a percentage than German officer casualties. Yet in WW2 the Germans produced the most outstanding tactical and operational talent of the war. The real answer to British difficulties was an institutional debility in officer selection, training, innovation, doctrine and experimentation. Add to that a complete lack of funding.

You make many good points in your comment that the American public were really not interested in hearing. Fortunately, good officers like Marshall were realists and between the wars with scarce resources attempted to correct many of the problems experienced in doctrine, training and organization if only on paper. They were largely successful in implementing those ideas twenty years later.

The Enfield M1917 not the Springfield was copied from the British Pattern 1913 Enfield and proved to be considerably more durable and as accurate as the Springfield M1903. Since the rifle was already in production at Winchester and Remington for British contract it made sense to convert it to the U.S. .30 Govt. and mass-produce it for U. S. troops. The mistake at the end of the war was to retain the Springfield as standard issue only because it was an American design and made at U. S. arsenals.

During the war the British FM Alanbrook often said that the tremendous casualties of British officers in the First World War damaged the pool of officer talent for the Second. No doubt the casualties were in fact massive but no worse as a percentage than German officer casualties. Yet in WW2 the Germans produced the most outstanding tactical and operational talent of the war. The real answer to British difficulties was an institutional debility in officer selection, training, innovation, doctrine and experimentation. Add to that a complete lack of funding.

Not the way it is Ducky, I wish you were right even a little but if anything our GOs take whatever S**t Sandwich they are given and eat it with great relish, no matter how badly it effects combat effectiveness or the troops as long as they keep their positions. There are the rare exceptions who would rather resign than carry out orders that they do not believe in but for the most part the Officers who make 06 and above did not get their through being innovative, outside the box thinkers who speak up when somethings wrong and rock the boat.

Guess that leaves the two of us...

I wasn't going to say it, but the photo of these two clowns spoon feeding known and known unknown shit to a room of press just ruined a rather nice sunny day.

FBRAUN, you are precisely correct. German excellence at 'fighting war' was largely offset by a general strategic incompetence enhanced by political systems that worked against a realistic rationalization of goals and objectives contrasted with capability and resources. This was profound in both the First and Second World Wars.

The Political System of the Germans still drove strategy far to often, this caused them endless "lost victories". I am quite glad they did though since it might have been a much longer war if they did not, our industry, sheer numbers and the geography still would have won the day eventually but I think the war might have been much longer. Who knows, maybe we would have ended up having to use an atomic bomb on them to shorten the war?

It hardly makes much sense to criticize the Prussian (i.e., German) general staff because it didn't prevail after "the complicated imperfect systems of the allies functioned well enough" -- which overlooks the fact that this period of improved system function benefited from the fact that the German military were engaged mainly in surviving the heroic Soviet sweep forward on the eastern front at the time. OKW records captured after the war showed that to the German high command, Italy and Normandy were virtually sideshows for which there were always grievously few resources.

The German high command didn't want to attack the Soviet Union. A former corporal did, and by reason of his democratic victory to lead the German government -- and from that position, order his military into virtually any action that interested him. So we're back into issues arising from civilian control of the military, rather than a failure of military command. That problem is never going to vanish, so long as there are civilian governments. Of course, when there's a coup, and as a result, no civilian government any more ... .

sorry about that, not sure it had submitted so i hit the button again, apparently it had, stupid system

A blog where you have to SEARCH for new posts and have no idea what time it is. There are so many less prestigious blogs which email you when there is a new post on a selected subject and which know the correct time. I think that the talent is there, but the Post must not allocate adequate funds to IT. But then, the Post's website isn't great either - poor organization and appearance.